Monthly Archives: May 2012

On May 23rd, 2012, Darth Vader walked into a Toledo, Ohio, Huntington Bank and held the place up. The Force must have been strong with this one as Vader was able to make his escape on a BMX bike. As of this writing, the suspect was still at large.

Daring BMX escape aside, I’m still shocked this guy was able to pull the robbery off. Seriously, where was security during all this? Maybe I just live a sheltered life, but I can’t think of a single instance where it would be a good thing to see Darth Vader walk into your bank. I think that when the Dark Lord of the Sith comes strolling into your bank, it’s safe to assume things will end in tears.

You know, as someone who has been collecting all sorts of weird things about Ohio for over 13 years now, you can imagine the sort of stuff that come across my desk. And once Weird Ohio hit, I became the unofficial “Weird Ohio Guy” and people would even come to my public appearances bearing all sorts of weird gifts, photos, and newspaper articles (how cool is that?). Most items have traditionally found their way into nice little categories (Ghost Stories, Roadside Oddities, etc.), the one group that has been consistently ignored is what I’ve affectionately come to call News of the Weird; those wacky, usually short, news reports about all sorts of strange behavior and activity. Put another way, it’s all the weird news that doesn’t fit anywhere…until now!

That’s because I am officially opening up ONW, the Ohio News of the Weird. From time to time, I’ll be posting weird news reports ripped right from the headlines of Ohio newspapers. Weird, twisted stuff that was deemed news-worthy for reasons known only to the reporter. In other words, some really cool and offbeat stuff!

Don’t expect these articles to be very in-depth (they seldom are). And in most cases, the stories vanish as quickly as they appear. So keep an eye out for “ONW” in the post headlines and click away.

And should you stumble across anything you think belongs in the Ohio News of the Weird, feel free to pass it along: jim@strangeandspooky.com.